


arrowhead

by ChronicCanon



Category: She-Ra and the Princesses of Power (2018)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-08-03
Updated: 2019-08-03
Packaged: 2020-07-29 18:49:26
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,238
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20087038
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ChronicCanon/pseuds/ChronicCanon
Summary: Bow ventures into the Kingdom of Snows to try to find some special arrowheads.





	arrowhead

“So what exactly are you looking for?”

Bow turned to look at Glimmer, the excitement in his eyes contagious.

“Only the coolest material to pop up in the Etherian makers community!”

Glimmer shook her head like the memory would fall out and she might stop worrying about this secret mission. The two of them were riding in a carriage along a trade route to the Kingdom of Snows. Beside her, Bow peered out at the quickly passing landscape, that same excitement radiating off him now. Bow would be going on a solo mission – and sure, he’d gone on plenty before, but they didn’t typically involve sneaking past borders. If Glimmer was caught acquiring a special mineral to make specialized weapons, it might be seen as an aggression against the neutrality of the Kingdom of Snows and a violation of trade agreements. It wasn’t much of a decision. Solo mission for Bow to grab his neat rocks and leave.

“Glimmer, the roads are starting to ice over,” he informed in a singsong tone. “We’re almost there!”

“Bow, keep down!”

The rest of the ride was the same as the road there, but a bit less bumpy and slide-y after the wheels were decked out with ice proofing chains, and it didn’t take too long after that to get as far into the kingdom as they could go after some teleportation-aided evasion of cargo checks.

“Stay safe and get that arrowhead bait!”

He turned back towards her, walking towards the sparse trees, tracker pad at the ready, dazzling smile on his face and bottled determination in his mind.

“Of course. Two days, and I’ll introduce you to the best arrowheads an icy cave can offer out of the way of basically everything else can offer. See you in Bright Moon!”

“Not if I see you first!”

It was time to set Bow free on the tundra.

“And bring me back a souvenir!”

Despite the long stretches of open land, and the occasional chill at his midriff, the journey towards the cave was a total cake walk, until the first sign of life.

In the distance, poking up from the horizon, sitting on short brownish-green grasses, a small village approached with every step. Bow couldn’t tell at first what was there, hills and sudden drop-offs distorting the entirety of the landscape. Bow realized the inhabitants probably couldn’t see him for another few meters.

He evaluated his options. He could probably go around the village without too much trouble, as long as he managed to keep moving in generally the same direction. To his right, a cliff, going by the chasm between it and mountain facing it, probably like the ones he’d passed, with free rocks and boulders of varying sizes, dropping off above a river, going by what he’d seen before. To his left, a hill that looked like it plateaued.

Giant plummet into water? Or just a walk?

Bow turned left and began eyeballing a perimeter. He couldn’t see too well into the village, which was a pretty good sign, considering he wanted to avoid detection. Customs were different here, and the Kingdom of Snows was not filled with a very outward-looking people, if their rulers’ cold, constant distance from the fight against the Horde was anything to by. Bow didn’t want any conflict, even if it would be nice to meet some of the locals. They were just common people – the strongest warriors and defenders against any imaginable threat.

Bow just didn’t want to be _imagined_as that threat.

He could look back at the village now, just behind him, to his right. A familiar sound seemed to creep up from the ground, like the moss and pebbles whispering for him to stay away and keep up his guard.

As he inched closer, the ground began to slope, and a rushing stream, at least ten Bows wide, suddenly came into view. This patch of river didn’t quite seem to be the rapids. As he slid down, Bow scanned for rapids, coming up with the

It clicked. The snow permanently adorning the tips of the mountain he’d see if he’d gone right. That meant clean water could permanently flow downhill. Of course there was a settlement there – water, animals drinking from it – this place had everything.

Unfortunately, that also included a waterfall, thanks to the unforgiving landscape of the Kingdom of Snows. Even the southernmost edges of the lands held the same spirit as the rest, as though the entire land whispered to its inhabitants, and yelled at its visitors, “Do not underestimate us.”

Bow eyed a fallen log, jutting only about halfway into the stream. A path of small pebbles led up to it, and a clear realization fell onto Bow like a tree in a tundra.

He was going to secure his jacket and weapons, take off his shoes, galvanize his nerves, and cross that river. His boots, luckily, had shoelaces. He tied them together and dangled them like a loose but really _heavy_scarf around his neck, making a mental note to wash his jacket when he got back. He couldn’t exactly cross a river and evade a death by waterfall only to get frostbite, could he?

It was times like these when Bow knew he had to really buckle down and remember all the skills his dads had given him. They trusted him, and Bow wanted to make them proud.

Slow and steady. Steady and smart. Smart and humble.

Bow took in a breath.

Step.

Cold water lapped at his feet and legs, and Bow could see the currents underneath him, swirling around the stones. He could feel the force of the water trying to upheave his world.

Step.

The stones were slippery. He couldn’t go too fast.

Step.

How far could this thing be?

Step.

Bow would look back and check his progress but turning around didn’t seem to be the best idea.

Step.

He was almost close enough to fire an arrow with a rope attached into the fallen tree. Maybe one more would be enough.

Ste-slip.

Bow would have kicked himself for letting his mind wander if he wasn’t so busy flailing his arms and trying to regain his uneasy footing. Adrenaline pulsing in his ears, Bow somehow managed to find the stone again and jolt himself back upright.

Bow knew he needed to take the shot.

The arrow reached the log and Bow was glad to have something sturdy to hold onto.

Just as the cold was starting to get to him, Bow stepped onto the log and fired another arrow further along it. He wouldn’t take any chances he didn’t need to take.

It felt good to reach solid land again. Even if the land was cold.

Bow watched as the black sands of the beach came into view. Strewn along the shore were giant pieces of clear ice, all in unique and abstract shapes. In the distance, a glacier loomed, stoic in the sea. The sky was filled with ribbons of color, red and orange and yellow, the setting sun caught in the ice, as though it also wanted to rest on the beach a while.

“Am I here?” Bow wondered aloud. “Huh. Okay. Not bad.”

Bow wondered what the beach would look like during high tide, considering how most of the waves lapped 30 meters or more away from the furthest ice blocks inland. He scanned the shoreline, along what he guessed were north and south by the position of the setting sun. Towards the south, the beach itself seemed to fold in around itself, and a hole appeared somewhere along the sands. He headed towards it.

The coordinates on the tracker pad were a bit off, then. He shrugged and gave a small hum of dismissal. Supposedly, though his soon-to-be loot was not magical, per se, it did have some special properties about it that made tech go haywire, something about the buildup of static electricity or the presence of natural magnets in the cave itself. And, of course, Bow could figure things out for himself.

He walked along, sand shifting underfoot.

Over the crashing of the waves, a quiet but ever-present reminder of all that existed outside of himself, Bow listened to the winds of the sea, whistling between the imperfections in the ornamental statues of ice. He couldn’t hear any life. No crabs scurried and he saw nobody else on the beach. He’d heard stories that this cave could only be seen by those it allowed to witness its existence, but he’d never considered the story’s potential validity until then. Considering the woods he regularly traveled in or around, he kicked himself that maybe he really should have.

It was okay. He was where he chose to be.

Bow reached the mouth of the cave, where the black sands lazily fell into the crevice. It stretched out wide in front of him, too dark to see inside, a conspicuous hole in his vision despite the fact that the sun blared its light onto everything around it. He considered using a flash arrow to illuminate it, but he figured it wouldn’t help much. It seemed like some magic mumbo jumbo protected the cave. And he knew enough not to mess with too much magic mumbo jumbo alone in a kingdom he knew nobody in, away from everyone who knew where he was and could possibly come to rescue him.

He took one last look at the horizon and shook himself out, giving a sigh out at the final stage of his journey.

“Okay, let’s go.”

He readied an arrow and walked into the darkness.

He crossed into the world of the cave, and took in a sharp breath at the sudden appearance of a steady red light, reflecting off of gems embedded in the walls, and the cragged surface of the walls themselves. He looked around and saw nobody else, no other signs of life, and no light source. The space itself was much bigger than he anticipated, too. It gaped and spread and the walls almost seemed to squirm beyond his peripheral vision, as though to accommodate more of itself.

As he walked further inside, he realized he could hear his own footsteps. He looked down and realized the ground in the cave was actually made of glass. He tapped at it gently, and the small noise reverberated much more than he thought it should have. Some magic mumbo jumbo was definitely up with the cave.

He turned around and realized he couldn’t see an exit. He fired the arrow where he knew the exit was and watched it disappear into what seemed to be a rock face. He turned to his right and fired another arrow, which actually hit a wall. He couldn’t leave a trail on the floor, and Bow knew he might need to waste normal arrows finding his way out, if he went too far deep. That was never ideal, but he wanted that special material.

He turned back and looked for his loot. According to the word making rounds in the community, it was a shiny gray material that was very malleable when bent one way but very brittle the other. He spotted an accumulation of opaque rocks duller than the translucent gems that lined the walls. It wasn’t as opaque as the walls, which looked like they were covered in a dusting of mist.

He made his way over to them, and saw that they weren’t stuck in the ground, and didn’t seem rooted in the cave at all, almost like they were just deposited there for safekeeping. He got out his canvas sack, which he’d stowed in his quiver, and untied the bow he’d made it into to keep it tidy and small.

Bow knew rocks like these must have been heavy- very dense, really- made of heavy metals. And yet when he picked the whole pile up, it felt no heavier than his quiver. He couldn’t fathom it, and there it was, a large pile than went up to his waist on the floor, now resting easily in his hands.

He started off in the direction he shot the arrow that hit the wall. It was a relatively good marker.

A rumble emerged from deeper in the cave. Bow felt a sudden jolt of adrenaline when he realized what might be happening. As he ran, the rumbling merged with the clacking of his boots, getting louder and louder as time went on and everything seemed to become much more than it ever was before.

Bow made his way out just as the wall of sound became nearly unbearable. In his hands, the giant stack of rocks had somehow shrunken into a dense ball that fit neatly in his palms when he held them together. The stars were already out, and he wondered how long he was out for. He turned around and saw only flat beach under the starry skies.

Bow considered the rock in his hands. It seemed to be just enough to make a solid dozen arrowheads, which was what he was shooting for. He hated to think it, but it was like the cave knew.

He looked up at the moon, now a crescent shining brightly above the glacier and the glittering sand. It wasn’t such a terrible place to set up camp, Bow decided.

He would have a lot to tell Glimmer tomorrow evening.

**Author's Note:**

> so this was written for my first zine! just a fun little adventure. hope you liked it!
> 
> -  
and how about that season 👀


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